


All my life

by SwanFloatieKnight



Category: Tannhäuser - Wagner
Genre: Canonical Character Death, Emotional Hurt, Forgiveness, Hope, Hurt No Comfort, Internal Monologue, Introperspective, M/M, Possibly Unrequited Love, Sad
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-30
Updated: 2019-06-30
Packaged: 2020-05-29 17:52:38
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,597
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19405222
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SwanFloatieKnight/pseuds/SwanFloatieKnight
Summary: I must have loved you for so long, Wolfram. All my life.





	All my life

A/N: I posted this fic on Ao3, and on Ao3 alone. If you read this on any other website or platform, please consider that I did not consent to this.

* * *

Whenever I close my eyes, I can see you. The beautiful face of a beautiful person, well-known and wanted. For years, it was nothing more than a shadow cast onto the even darker walls of my mind. A brightly glowing shadow. But you have always been there, and now I can see you clearly. You are the person, the reason why I escaped from Venus, and you are the reason why I am here, in Thuringia, at Hermann’s court again.

It wasn’t loyalty that brought me back, and it wasn’t friendship either.

It was love. Pure, unconditional love. Love, so strong and overwhelming that it took my breath away, in the very moment I realized it. My heart stopped for a second, I didn’t know if I was still alive when it started beating again – and from this moment on, I was breathing, living for you, only for you.

I didn’t even remember much of you when I decided to leave Venus. There was your hair, dark and curly, and I remembered one time when we were in the forest in spring, shortly after I had arrived in Thuringia. The sun shone through the young green leaves and your hair was gleaming, dark and beautiful.

Maybe it had been this springtime when I fell in love with you. But it still took me a long while to find out.

There was a winter evening, one of many. We sat together in the great hall, close to the fire, and you were writing a poem. You have always been beautiful, but it were moments like these, when you were writing or singing or playing the harp that your eyes shone like stars. Moments in which you did what you loved. In which you were truly happy. I could feel that you were happy this evening, your eyes shone like stars, and when you had finished your poem, you looked at it and smiled happily before you took out your harp and begun playing.

Your voice had always been beautiful, but that night it sounded different. More intense in a way. I could feel what you sang. And your words and the melody of your harp, together with the flickering light from the fire and your deep, strong voice, all this pierced my heart and left a wound which’s cause I did not really understand for a long time. A wound that did not heal.

Maybe it was what you sang about. It was a song about longing and desire, a lover who had to part from his lady. Nothing unusual, really. A watchman called out when dawn broke, warned them so that they would not be discovered. When your song ended, you just stared into the fire, silently, no more words left to say, and I had a strange feeling of missing something I had never known before.

Later, I realized that it had been you I was missing. I longed for your touch. I wanted to feel your lips on my skin, my hands on your bare chest, our bodies damp with sweat, heated, glowing red in the fire light. Holding on to each other, making love to each other. You have always looked so soft in the fire light, so beautiful.

You truly are beautiful.

A short while after your song had ended, you left the hall. I felt like crying when I went to bed. I could still hear your song in my head, and all I wished for were your arms around me, holding me tight.

I have never forgotten this winter night, and only years later I figured out why.

When the duke's hunting party stumbled upon me in the forest, just after I had returned to this world, I really wanted to turn away and leave them. I didn't want to take the risk of feeling again. I was afraid.

And then, you stepped forward and told me about Elisabeth.

I nearly stopped breathing, because the moment I laid my eyes upon you, I suddenly knew what it was I was feeling. You all thought it was because of Elisabeth, but it wasn’t.

It was all about you. Wolfram von Eschenbach. It had taken me years, but from that moment on I knew what the strange, searing ache in my heart meant, and I knew why I didn't want to play the harp or write poetry anymore. It had reminded me of you, and you were far away, and your absence had been painful.

It was then that I realized what it was I had run from. Why I had desperately wished to leave Hermann’s court, never to return. I had been afraid of what I felt, somewhere deep down at the bottom of my heart; even too afraid to accept it. Now that I knew it for certain, I was even more unsettled. But I no longer tried to run from it. It was a part of me, I now understood, and I would never be able to get rid of it.

And after all, who might want to get rid of something so precious, so wonderful as you are?

I must have loved you for so long, Wolfram. All my life. Ever since I first laid my eyes upon you.

When I left for Rome, I didn’t do it to ask the pope for forgiveness for my sins. I knew I would never be forgiven. I did it so nobody would suspect me being in love with you. Elisabeth must have known it, I am sure she did. But she sacrificed herself for me. Never again will another person do something so selfless.

She was the reason why I wasn’t instantly killed by the angry knights at the court. And you, you were just standing there, watching in shock and horror when Biterolf and Walther pulled out their swords and approached me. Why did you not join them? Why did you just watch?

I have thought about this for many a night during my pilgrimage to Rome. And I never found an answer. It is fine, maybe some things should stay a secret. But when you stood there, our eyes met for a second, and I saw that you were shocked. Because I might have been killed? Was it the image of my slaughtered body laying on the floor of the great hall, covered in blood, that brought such devastation to your eyes?

I will never know, and maybe it is better that way.

Because I wasn’t forgiven, as I had expected, and I should never have returned to you. I was risking your life. I should never have done this. But I couldn't resist. All I wanted was to see you one last time, so that I could die in peace. I was selfish, but I didn't care. Whether it is one sin that condemns me or a million, what do I care?

You have always been my friend, Wolfram, and I only wanted to see you again. I was longing for you, as I had been all my life.

And now I am dying in your arms, with her name on my lips and it feels so wrong, but I can't risk anything now. Not in this last moments. I have already risked too much by coming here. I only wish you knew how much I have loved you, Wolfram. I have loved you for so long that it feels wrong not telling you anything. But it is better that way.

And maybe you can even read it in my eyes, like you could have done on this winter evening in the great hall, or in the moment when you stepped forward in the forest to persuade me to stay, or when I left you for my pilgrimage to Rome. Maybe you have known it for longer than I have.

I love you, Wolfram. And the way how I finally leave you feels so wrong, and yet so right. At least I am with you. And you are there and hold me tight.

I will never forget the warmth of your strong arms wrapped tightly around my broken body. I have desired this for so long. Dying here feels just right. Like the forgiveness I thought I could never gain. Would you forgive me if you knew, Wolfram? Would you kiss my forehead, or even my lips, and tell me that it was all right? That there was nothing to worry about?

Would you forgive me?

Her name might be on my lips, in my last breath. But your name, Wolfram, is in my heart until its last beat. Where it has been for a time so long I can't even remember all of it. It feels like it has always been there.

I close my eyes, but I can still see your face. Just like it has always been there. You were my guardian angel, Wolfram, for so many years. You have always been there, and you never knew it.

When darkness takes me, your beautiful eyes are looking at me, and there is so much sadness in them that it might have broken my heart, if it had not already been dead. I love you, Wolfram. I hope that there will be another side, another chance, another life. And I will pray that your eyes will no longer be sad when I meet you again.


End file.
